Dinky Bomb – multiplayer game

Back in 2002 some colleagues and I built one of the web’s first and most popular online multi-user Flash games, Dinky Bomb.

After the dotcom we were working for folded (NOW.com / Gamer TV), it was sold to EA and subsequently acquired by Atari, who have unfortunately done little with it. Gone for now, but not forgotten; there are a few YouTube videos out there, including this one, which features Dinky Bomb as part of a TV game show from way back then… good times!

A Dinky History

Dinky Bomb was an online multi-player Flash game, built for the converged service Gamer TV many years ago (2002). It was one of the first real-time multi-user experiences on the web in Flash technology (originally Flash 5, connecting to a Java socket server backend with Flash’s then new XMLSocket capability). It grew to become one of the most popular web games, with all of the Dinky Bomb servers almost always full! A special level was built for the TV game show Hi-Score.

Since then, Dinky Bomb has been redeveloped into ‘Dinky Bomb Deluxe’, using a different lobby system and a Java-based physics engine. This was shortly before Gamer TV closed its web arm to concentrate on TV, selling off much of its content to a third party. Subsequently, Dinky Bomb has been acquired by Atari and then sold off yet again – alas, not to me.

The team at the TWI (IMG) run NOW.com / Gamer.tv converged services, which designed and built the original Dinky Bomb were:

Jesus, did I loved this game. I left when Atari took over, everyone was so happy to see it happen. Turned out a bad decicion. And I see that they shut it down… Oh well, I wasn’t going to be a black star soon anyway. IS the community still alive?

No 🙁 because I built it under the employ of TWI, they owned it, but sold it off to one of the staff (?) but ignored my requests to take it, host it and develop/maintain it …I guess it’s who you know huh?

I used to play this game several years ago. I remember that night when Slipkid played his 10,000th game. I used to love this game. I left shortly before Atari took over. Came back periodically to check on it, eventually it was gone ]: Any news on it coming back?